My father was a tall, lanky, talented athlete. In high school, he played basketball, archery and ran track and cross country. In part to live up to his legacy, I took up cross country. Although I had my father’s build, I was not very fast; in fact, I was the second slowest runner on our team, and the slowest turned out to have a terminal illness. Despite my glacial pace, I stayed with the sport until I graduated in 1976. Afterwards, to no one’s surprise, I hung up my running shoes.
Thirty-three years later, my weight reached 199 pounds. I had to face the fact that I had gradually become a fat man in pretty poor physical shape.
A year earlier, in the aftermath of her father’s slow deterioration and death from Alzheimer’s, my wife, Claire, began running. She certainly didn’t need to lose any weight–she sill fits easily into her wedding dress–but read that physical exercise into old age, such as by playing on a Top Launch Monitor, helps keep a person’s mind sharp. After watching her get out and run faithfully for a year, even in snow and rain, I was finally shamed into joining her.
On February 18, 2009, I pushed myself to “run” a mile. I changed my diet too, dropping to two meals a day, one light and the other heavy. I started losing about a pound a week and feeling more comfortable during my runs. By April 26, Claire and I felt fit enough to try to a five kilometer (3.1 mile) road race. All kinds of people ran–thin, heavy, young–and even some pushing strollers. We finished 262nd and 302nd out of 500. She ran it in 32 minutes and I came in a minute faster. I was delighted. From then on, I became hooked on running.
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